Aussie gossip monger Influencer Updates AU (@influencer.updates.au) has given a tell-all interview about how she started holding influencers to account and this here, folks, is TEA.
I love drama as much as the next person (and if you claim not to, I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you), so I spend a good chunk of time inhaling the goss shared by IGs in the likes of Deuxmoi, Aussie Influencer Opinions and Influencer Updates AU.
I am, however, even more interested in how TF someone decides to dedicate much of their life to delving into the lives of others. So, imagine my absolute fkn joy when Amber Paul, the brains behind Influencer Updates AU, dished the how and why in a chat with the Daily Mail Australia.
The Geelong-based mum-of-two was on maternity leave during the COVID lockdowns and — like most of us — found she had a shit-ton of time on her hands.
And, like most of us gossip-hungry fiends, she started Insta-stalking influencers.
“My motivation for starting the account was that none of my friends or family cared about anything I had to say,” Amber explained. And honestly, I could say the same about me talking to my loved ones about Taylor Swift.
ANYWAY.
Amber added that at the time, “there weren’t many people talking about Australian influencers online”.
“My sister Kayla, the owner of Tribe Skincare, suggested I start a TikTok page where I can talk about the interesting things that Australian Influencers are doing,” she explained.
So, in November 2020, the young mum shared her first TikTok, which was about YouTuber Ashley Mescia revealing her recent breast augmentation surgery. It garnered a whopping 50,000 views in a matter of hours.
Within six months of sharing regular content about well-known influencers, Amber had nabbed over 70,000 followers on the clock app. She then made the leap to IG in July 2021.
She’s since turned her side project into a full-time gig, having quit her job as an accountant to focus on bringing her followers tea about influencers’ accomplishments, controversies and breakups, which she sources from followers with insider knowledge.
Sharing the full, unedited interview to her Instagram page, Amber confessed the “most shocking” influencer drama she’s come across was “in April this year” when Emma Claiir admitted to killing a cat by “swinging it around”.
She even dished that she’s sitting on info about an alleged cheating scandal involving an “Australian influencer couple”, but is yet to post about it because she hasn’t “seen any proof”.
Amber also shot down criticism that she’s using the guise of “calling [influencers] out” as a means to unfairly criticise those in the public eye.
“We all make mistakes in life and it’s just that influencers’ mistakes are out there for us all to see, judge and criticise,” she said.
Given this, Amber isn’t immune to gritty legal cases or influencers blocking her from seeing their IG content. But it’s not holding her back from earning big from what was originally a hobby.
At the time of writing, Influencer Updates AU currently sits at 61.4k Instagram followers, 2,500 of whom paid $20 to access exclusive Q&As, daily Instagram Stories and the names of influencers that are typically blocked out in the IG’s public posts.
For those quick on the math, that’s over $50,000 Amber has earned from putting her tea behind a paywall so far.
XOXO, Gossip Girl is shaking in her designer boots.
